EDUCATION ATTACKED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18547, 3 November 1923, Page 13

EDUCATION ATTACKED.

BUSINESS MAN'S VIEWS. COMMERCIAL LIFE IGNORED. ■" AST AMUSED ' TOLERANCE." [FROM OUR OWN COEBBSrOKDBNT.]-' LONDON. Sept. 18. At one of the British Association's meetings Mr. R. J. McAlpine, head of one of Liverpool's largest businesses, attacked the whole system of education and the attitude of headmasters - and mistresses toward business. " They have simply a polite and amused tolerance toward business men," he said. Mr. McAlpine devoted his early years to purely educational matters. Then, when middleaged, he turned to business. " School heads should * visit business houses and see what exactly is wanted. Business men would welcome their cooperation." Recently, said Mr. McAlpine, in his business they needed a number of better-educated girls to train for positions in the retail trade. These girls would be given a course of four years trailing, and would be sent to London, Paris, and New York for study in stores there. He sent out a " general" letter to schoolmasters, asking them to co-operate and find suitable candidates. In each instance he 'received a polite letter of regret, saying that they could not do anything. "It is pathetic," exclaimed Mr. McAlpine, " to find how the office tradition is held by average parents. The office is a dead end as a rule. This desire on the part of parents should be combated by headmasters and mistresses. It is a mistake to think business is simply carried on for profit," Mr. McAlpine added. " Modern business is built up by keeping faith with the public. It is a service. Probably in the time to come business will be recognised as a useful and honourable profession. .'.'*' " Too much attention is paid to mere academic scholarship. This is particularly due to laziness on the part of teachers, for it is far easier for a master to turn out academic successes than successes in other spheres. lam the last man to advocate so-called * business training ' in schools," said Mr. McAlpine. "BusinessEnglish can still be found in some businesses, but, thank goodness, it is now dying out. There seems room for a new type of secondary school, which will take the best brains at 15 years old and divert them toward business life. "It would be a very great thing if we could have . a school in which the headmaster, at the annual prize-giving, got up and said: ' Gentlemen, I am glad to say that during the past year we have not won a single scholarship to the universities.' Since the war a number of university graduates had been wanted for business, and had proved successful," said Mr. McAlpine," but it is a costly way of obtaining business managers. The university leaving age is far too old. The formative age is from 18 onwards, and this is the . mast valuable time for business training. Opportunities in business to-day are greater than ever before. _ It is not true that men are merely machines in modrn business organisation."